Constant armed conflicts since 1996 have exacerbated the sufferings of the civil population. The DRC has had 35 years of bad governance followed by 16 years of armed conflict.

Armed groups continue to massacre villages and rape women in large numbers, sustaining themselves by controlling minerals mines and trading routes. Despite the presence of the world’s largest UN peacekeeping operation, violent conflict never actually ceased in Congo. Estimates of those killed in this conflict are more than six million, and the majority are women and children.

We Congolese women are now appealing to ordinary people of conscience throughout the globe to come to our side and join us in bringing an end to the deadliest conflict in the world. We would like to spread the information throughout the world on the atrocities inflicted to the girls and the women, for the martyrdom which they’ve endured over a decade. Hundreds of thousands of women, girls and babies have been literally raped to death and still are, while the world watches in silence.

Even a cat thrown in a bin sparked outrage and created international headlines. But the media do not report the massacres, rapes, mutilations of Congolese women. There is a deadly silence around the role of western mining interests in the perpetuation of the conflict.

We request the support of men and women of the whole world. We make a point of informing while taking the whole world as a witness of what is happening in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And to help us do this, we need anyone who can, to get behind our campaign.

Currently in the DRC there is an avalanche of well intentioned organisations that are coming to assist and relieve abused women. It is necessary to indicate that all these programmes mobilise important funds but unfortunately the results are as tiny, as the impact is insignificant. While addressing the consequences, it is important to put in place appropriate mechanisms to act on the deep causes and to propose appropriate steps for durable solutions.